Something Wrong
by Dianakit12
Summary: Riku was always the second child even if he was born first. Everyone doted over his baby brother but now that he's gone... what will happen to Riku?
1. Prologue

"Riku! _Riiiikkuuuu! _Brother, where are you?_" _A young boy walked through the marsh near his house, yelling between his grunts of effort to unstick his feet from the mud that reached his ankles. An older boy huddled on a dry spot next to a tree stump, hidden behind the tall grass. He scowled as he heard his brother, Azul, yell again for him. All he wanted was to be left alone, but no, his parents had saddled him with babysitting his younger brother _again_. That meant constant whining and pleading from the four year old to play games, go swim in the river and go on 'adventures'. Riku wanted none of it. He knew that if Azul took a few more steps past him he'd fall into the spill way and probably get stuck for a good while. Long enough for his brother to run off and go play with his own friends.

"_RIKU!_" the shrill yell made the boy cringe. Azul sounded more like a girl when he yelled than any kid—or girl—that Riku knew. Azul was just in front of him now, unable to see past the thick grass that grew from the marsh. "Brother! Please come out, I'm hungry. Momma and Daddy—_Riku!_"

The unmistakable sound of mud sucking in feet and the splat that the brown gunk gave as Azul fell caused the older boy to grin. It shouldn't take Azul _too _long to get himself out of the mud. He got up, dodging the wetter spots of the marsh as he headed into the village to find his friends. What didn't pass through Riku's mind were the recent rains that had covered the village lately. The spill way wasn't just mud right then.

"Your brother! Your baby brother!" Kairu wailed, red faced and gasping for air on the couch. Riku sat across from her, hands folded in his lap as he looked up.

"I didn't do anything, Mother. He wandered off and-"

A slap echoed through the house, leaving an uneasy silence in its wake. Lukis glared down at the child he now regrettably called his son.

"He wandered off? _He wandered off!_" He growled, "Many people saw you lead him into the marsh, you wretched child! You _killed _my son!"

_I'm your son to,_ Riku thought angrily as the door swung open. He looked up, meeting the eyes of his uncle. "Kairu… tell me it's not true. Azul.. he isn't…" His eyes darted from his sister, to his nephew and then to his brother-in-law. Kairu, in response, got up and ran from the room crying.

_Drama queen_, Riku thought bitterly. They all cared about poor little Azul, the same boy who'd set half of the wheat field on fire last year and burned their family's share of the crops. The same boy who'd gotten Riku's dog, Minx, killed because he'd growled at the child. If anything, Riku felt he'd done a service to the community.

"Are you listening to me," Lukis howled angrily, causing Riku to blink and look up at his father. "Yes," He replied, keeping his tone level. His cheek hurt but he wouldn't let on, nor to the fact that he could taste blood in his mouth. He'd deal with it later. He zoned back out just as his uncle joined the yelling match.


	2. Five Years Later

~Five Years Later~

"You can't just do nothing,"

"Oh, I can't? Watch me," Riku snorted, not moving from his position on the tree limb. He looked down at Tia with a raised eye brow, tilting his head slightly at he looked at her. She had on a light skirt that reached her knees and a tan colored top that fell off one shoulder. If he hadn't have known any better he would have guessed she was from another village with how she dressed, but he knew better. The skirt and top were only for an occasion. Any other day and she would have been in cut off pants and a tank top, working on anything she could get her hands on.

"It's your brother's birthday!" Tia snapped and ducked down, grabbing a rock from the ground as she threw it up at him. It hit its mark, drawing a thin line of blood from Riku's cheek. He glared down at her, "I'm not going to my dead brothers birthday party," he growled. "no one wants me there anyhow." He added in a lower voice and went to picking bark off the spot next to his head.

Tia sighed, "What if I said Cairu is gonna be there?" Riku paused for a moment but went back to the bark after a second. "So? Famous little miss Cairu is going to a dead kids party. Sick if you ask me."

"Oh, come on Riku! It's been five years!"

"Yeah! Five years of everyone glaring at me, blaming me for his death and doing everything but outing me from the village! Even my parents refuse to speak to me. I'm pretty sure I'm the last person they want to see at the cemetery." He hopped down from the limb and Tia backed up a step, watching him stalk off deeper into the forest.

"Go on to his party, Tia, I don't care. I wouldn't want to ruin the big day for you or anyone else in the village." He called over his shoulder. "The day the little mutt turns nine and the whole village is still throwing him the ceremony. It's all crap." He muttered as he shoved his hands into his pockets. Riku glanced over his shoulder, unable to see Tia anymore.

"Where've you been?" Riku glanced up, looking at Lukis who glared at him with narrowed eyes. Everyone looked at him with narrowed eyes like he'd just killed someone with the exception of Tia and Bale.

"Around," he shrugged and stepped back quickly, dodging his father's clenched fist. "I didn't do anything; you can't hit me for no reason." He muttered, looking up through his mop of dark hair to meet his fathers amber eyes. Lukis swung again and like each and every night he'd been drinking, Riku dodged him and walked inside. The whiskey and other various alcoholic drinks mixed into something horrible, making Rikus' stomach twist with each breath his father took near him.

Kairu sat at the table, a ceramic mug in one hand and a small, framed picture in the other. She looked up at Riku as he walked in. "You're late coming home," She murmured.

"I was with Tia," He replied. Kairu didn't say anything else to him as he went back to his room, falling onto his bed.

"You're being a jerk and you know it, Ri," He tilted his head back to see Bale perched in his window, arms crossed.

"You're one to talk. You went to my dead brother's ceremony instead of hanging out with me." He muttered.

"That's all your family thinks of, isn't it? I wasn't talking about not going to the ceremony. Heck, I wouldn't have gone to it myself if Tia hadn't asked me to go with her. You know she doesn't like being around your parents during this time of year, being what she is and all. I meant how you treated her. I should throttle you right now."

"Why don't you?" Riku muttered, toying with a necklace he had looped around his wrist so many times it was practically a bracelet.

"Because I asked him not to." Riku tilted his head slightly, catching sight of Tia standing just behind Bale in the darkness. "So chivalrous, Tia. You deserve an award," Riku muttered, rolling his eyes.

"Chill out, Ri, she's had a tough day," Bale snapped and jumped onto the floor of Riku's room.

"Oh, spending time with my family and this whole damn village can drive anyone nuts. Don't lecture me about tough days, Bale." Riku rolled over, sitting up on his bed.

"You aren't the Sensor, you asshole!" Bale growled as Riku stood up. "You don't have to deal with emotions of this place each and every day! You don't—"

"Calm down, please Bale." He glanced back, letting out a breath of air slowly. He clenched and unclenched his fists while Tia slipped into the room without a single sound. Riku crossed his arms, raising an eyebrow. "How sweet. You two going to throw me an intervention because I'm so damn depressed?" he scowled and glanced at Tia.

Her eyes were squeezed shut, "I can't stay here long-"  
>"Whatever," Riku muttered.<br>"-but please, just listen to me."

Bale was leaning against the wall, saying things under his breath as he kept a watch out the window. "you should listen to her. She's in pain just being near your house. In its something totally worse."

"You need to leave the village," Tia said slowly. The usually tough girl was nowhere to be found inside Tia right then. Her Sensor side had taken over completely, shielding her from the worse of the emotions and thoughts in the Odair household. "The ceremony raised some... Questions about Azuls death."  
>"Questions?" Riku laughed, no emotion to be heard in the forced sound. "what questions? The brat fell in the mud and suffocated. Simple as that." he shrugged and Tia winced at the child's death sounding so meaningless in his older brothers words.<p>

"I mean, they're beginning to wonder if you didn't plan it. There is no question that you didn't like him and a fall in the marsh is so... simple. So easy to say that it was an accident." she murmured. Bale listened quietly though he already knew all of this.

"Has it taken them five years to come up with that?" Riku asked, grinning. "Little late, aren't they?"

Tia gasped as Bales eyes snapped to his friend, "you planned it?"  
>"Ha! No. I knew he'd fall though. I expected that to happen." He replied and sat down just as his door opened. "Dad." Riku said curtly to the seething man standing in his doorway. "Heard that, did you?" He asked with a cocky grin.<p>

"You…you… I'll _kill you!_" the drunk man tried to close the gap between him and his sixteen year old son but it was in vain. Riku was up and dancing just out of his dads reach while Tia and Bale quickly went back out the window.

"He knew he was there," Tia mumbled and Bale wrapped an arm around her shoulders, "Not your fault. You were trying to save him and he obviously doesn't want it."

Bale winced at the sound of something breaking inside the room, noticing the light in Riku's room no longer lit the small expanse. "There goes the lamp. Bet ya anything his chair's next." Bale said, trying to make Tia smile. She didn't grin, or smile. She shrugged Bale's arm off of her and headed into the woods. "Where are you going, Tia?"

"I need to see Grandmother."

"The woman that lives near the beach?" Bale asked, jogging to catch up with her.

"Yes," She replied, trying to quickly put distance between her and the shouting match now emanating from Riku's room.

"Why? Isn't she… well, um…"

"She's deaf and mute, Bale, not dead."

"I never know what the old woman's saying," He scowled, "How do you know?"

"I just do," Tia replied in a quiet tone of voice as she cleared a fallen log, already able to hear the water crashing against the rocks in the distance.


End file.
